Pick Up the Pieces
by blue octopus
Summary: He saved them all, then he gave them up. And now he has Amy. [After the Lodger. The Doctor accidentally runs into an old friend. Thence flood the memories, leaving him torn apart.]


He thought about it at night, mostly.

So many people he'd saved but lost.

Sarah Jane, his companion from so long ago. Jack. Martha and Mickey. Jackie and Rose Tyler. Oh, Rose Tyler.

And Donna Noble.

He dreamed about them. He knew because Amy told him she heard him at night. He would say their names, all their names, everyone since the beginning of him.

Then one day, he saw her.

It was after he was with Craig, after he had helped Amy land the TARDIS. They took a holiday, in London. It wouldn't last long, he knew that. It never did. But he did it for Amy.

They were just walking when it happened. It was cold outside, and they shared a package of cinnamon nuts together.

The Doctor had always wanted to be ginger. It was the one color he'd never got. He almost always noticed the gingers. Today was no exception. It was a woman with red hair who stood looking in the shop window. He might never have caught it, except she turned around as he went past, and he stumbled.

"Don-na," he said, catching himself from falling to the pavement.

"Doctor, are you okay?" Amy asked, taking his arm.

"Sh, don't say my name," he cautioned, glancing back at Donna.

"Is something wrong?" Urgency grew in Amy's voice.

"No, no, it's just, we need to get slightly . . . away," he said.

"O-kay," Amy conceded, curiosity growing in her eyes.

The Doctor led her to the edge of the town, a small cafe where he asked for a seat in the back and a pot of raspberry tea. They sat, and the Doctor cleared his throat.

"What's wrong?" Amy demanded.

"Okay, this isn't an easy story to tell, so bear with me," he warned. She nodded, and he continued.

"You know I had a companion named Donna, right?" Amy nodded again in affirmation. "Well, what happened to her is a bit more complicated than the others. See, when I regenerated the last time, into the last version of me, I was with Rose, and there was . . . conflict. At the end of the day, I got a hand cut off, but since I was in the early hours of regeneration, it was able to grow back. There aren't really ways to condense this story, but basically, later on I was shot by a Dalek and started to regenerate. I only let the regeneration heal me, though, and I transferred the rest of the energy to the hand."

"You kept your hand?" Amy asked, disgusted.

"No," he said quickly, "not me, Jack. Long story. Anyway, I kept my old face because of that hand. Not long after that, Donna got in a sort of scrape, and I wasn't there in the TARDIS to help her. Now somehow," he sighed at the memory, "somehow, she turned the hand into another of me, but he was actually half me and half Donna, and Donna was half me and half her."

Amy looked perplexed, but nodded for him to continue.

"Basically, Donna was imparted some Time Lord-ness," he expressed with a funny motion of his hands. "And that's not ever supposed to happen. Everything in her head, it was killing her. I had to erase her memory so she could live."

Small noises filtered into the Doctor's ears. Across the room, a woman quieted a baby. At a nearby table, an elderly voice asked for a simple cup of Earl Grey with a bit of sugar. The Doctor reached across the table and took Amy's hand.

"She's here, Pond, I saw her. She . . . she hasn't changed." A hint of a smile played on his lips. "But she can't remember me, or she'll die." He looked away.

"Earl grey. Two sugars."

"Doctor," Amy said, squeezing his hand.

"Earl grey. Two sugars."

"Doctor?"

"Earl grey. Two sugars."

"Hey, it'll be okay."

"Earl grey. Two sugars."

"Doctor!"

"Earl grey. Two s-"

The Doctor pushed his chair back, so hard it clattered onto the floor. The words echoed in his mind. The voice was so familiar, it was unmistakable.

"Wilfred," he whispered.

Then Amy was running out of the cafe after him, not knowing what to do.

* * *

"I haven't seen Wilf, not since Donna's wedding."

Amy looked up at his words. He hadn't moved since she found him at the park bench.

"He was . . ." He closed his eyes and let out a breath. "He was kind of like my dad, those last hours before I regenerated." He gave a mirthless laugh. "I kind of thought he might have died. I would've gone to his funeral."

Amy was silent. "I'm sorry, Doctor," she said finally. She shifted on her perch on the back of the bench. "I'm not Donna. I'm not Wilf. I'm not . . . Rose. I wish I could be."

He looked up at her. "No, you're not." Then he smiled at her. "You're Amelia Pond. You are the girl who waited. You waited for me, Amelia Pond. And what more can I ask for?"

Amy smiled, sliding down next to him on the bench. Then she hugged him.

On the way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor veered aside. He slipped a note under the door of the Noble residence. A simple note, addressed to Wilf.

"Much love. The Doctor."

Donna would see it. She would ask why the doctor was sending love notes to their house. When she gave it to her grandfather, he would tear up. But Donna would not remember. To Donna, everything was ridiculous, everything was strange. She would never know that she was the most important woman in the universe.

The Doctor made sure to fly the TARDIS by Wilf's telescope. The old man saw the blue box, and looked, trembling, as the Doctor opened the door and waved.

Wilf would realize that the Doctor had changed. That the last goodbye really had been a last goodbye, but this, this was the final goodbye.

So the Doctor waved, and the Doctor smiled.

Sure, he'd seen Wilf before regenerating, and he'd seen Donna happy. But this was a different regeneration. This face needed someone. It needed someone to help pick up the pieces.

And for that, he had Amy.


End file.
